Since 1985, the lawyers at Shapiro & Appleton have dedicated their practice to helping people when they need it most. Our clients are usually down and out after a serious accident, struggling financially, physically, and emotionally. We take pride in advocating for the downtrodden and injured and getting the financial restitution they are owed.

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We are very proud of the success we have had in obtaining large settlements, arbitration awards, judgments, and jury verdicts. Our success is based mainly on our experience in courtrooms across Virginia.

Featuring breaking news stories in Virginia, North Caroling and nationwide. Our news stories about accidents, events, injuries, and lawsuits are researched and published by our team of experienced personal injury attorneys and could help you learn more about your personal injury case.

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By adapting and being familiar with not only Virginia and North Carolina Courts, but also Courts throughout the Eastern United States, our attorneys have developed a set of skills that can be incredibly useful in every sort of significant personal injury case.

The attorneys with our firm actively engage in continuing legal education seminars in the field of injury law. Our lawyers have also regularly delivered lectures to personal injury lawyers not only in Virginia but at national trial organizations.

To stay on the leading edge of personal injury law, all of the firm's attorneys are active in local, state, and national personal injury trial law organizations. We also retain the services of forensic animators, videographers, and computer specialists to produce compelling evidence that will persuade a jury to award maximum damages.

Brain Injury Evidence - Virginia Brain Injury AttorneysRick talks about the types of evidence that can be presented to show the existence of a brain injury.

Virginia Head Injury: Forgotten Trauma

Unfortunately, it is quite common for victims in serious accidents to suffer a traumatic brain injury (TBI). What's so surprising is how little attention seems to be paid to the people suffering from this horrible injury. Consider this fact - every 23 seconds a traumatic brain injury occurs in the U.S. This means over a million people in our county each year suffer a head injury. Over 50,000 of the people with a head injury will die from the blow or jolt causing TBI.

Because many cases of traumatic brain injury can have long term or permanent effects on the person, there are over 5 million Americans dealing with the effects of this terrible medical condition. Part of the reason that traumatic brain injury is often forgotten in this country has to do with some of the difficulties in recognizing and diagnosing the condition.

For example, if you ask a person after a automobile accident whether he lost consciousness, as is commonly done by the emergency services personnel, how is he suppose to know. If you are knocked unconsciousness, you don’t necessarily remember that unless someone tells you that they saw it or found you unconsciousness. Some people may not realize they have suffered a traumatic brain injury until someone close to them notices the physical, emotional, and mental changes after a motor vehicle crash. This form of closed head injury often is not obvious to the doctors in the emergency room because you can have a traumatic brain injury which does not appear immediately on a CT scan of your head.

It may seem hard for some to understand that you can have a traumatic brain injury without an open wound to the head. Just because the skin is not bruised or broken doesn’t mean that the brain inside the skull is undamaged. You can have traumatic brain injury just from the jolting back and forth motion commonly called whiplash in the context of a car wreck. What happens is that the soft brain tissue is ripped at a microscopic level from being thrown about within the hard, rough interior of the bony skull.

Brain injury victims are often referred to as the walking wounded. If you meet someone who has a brain injury you may not know that. Even if you know notice some other unusual behavior such as irritability or memory problems, you might attribute it to their personality or some other kind of non-physical problem. You may just think that they are just a difficult or unintelligent person. However, for those who knew the person before he suffered a brain injury, the after effects of the head trauma are clear.

All of these issues cause the people living with traumatic brain injury, and their medical condition to be misunderstood. As a result, the personal injury lawyer handling a case of moderate traumatic brain injury in a car wreck case has to overcome some of these misconceptions in convincing the jury that the injury is serious and real. The top personal injury lawyers in Virginia (VA) are able to answer some of these questions about traumatic brain injury, so that their clients get a fair shake with the insurance company and the courts. However, becoming knowledgeable about the medicine and facts about brain injury are necessary in order to do the best job for these clients who are often forgotten.

To get more information about TBI and the legal rights available to a victim who suffered a brain injury in an accident, take a look at these articles and videos: